Annual investment in Indian Railways has doubled since 2014: Suresh Prabhu

The annual investment in Indian Railways has doubled since 2014, Union Minister of Railways Suresh Prabhu said.

Railway Minister said that while Indian Railways has suffered because of under-investment, which led to poor infrastructure growth in the rail sector for many decades, NDA government focused on improving investment in Railways with a view to create infrastructure and augment capacity. He said that Rs 1.5 lakh crore funding facility with LIC is secured and for projects, Railways have also taken loans from the World Bank, JICA and ADB. Railways also propose to set up a fund, which will be structured with the assistance of the World Bank, wherein investments will be pooled from various investors for financing projects in the sector.

He said in mid-2015, Railways had finalised a medium-term investment plan of Rs 8.56 lakh crore and have considerably ramped up the investment made annually in Railways. The average investment between 2009 and 2014 was only about Rs 48,000 crore. In the current year, we propose to spend Rs 1.3 lakh crore, he added.

He added that Railways is very keen to engage with the private sector because of the efficiency of service delivery that they can bring into the Railways.